historian; but he lacks the warmth and brilliancy, the enthusiasm, the wide and genial sympathies, which are no less requisite.

This incompleteness of statement, on which we have remarked, renders it necessary that M. Guizot's readers should be well informed from other sources on almost all of the subjects of his interesting chapters. We may quote as an instance of this, the last chapter in the present volume, in which, as we have said, he gives the ministerial history of the mission of M. Rossi to Rome. It will probably be the verdict of all impartial historians by and by, that the government of which M. Guizot was the head were guilty of a great and cowardly mistake in yielding to the clamours raised on that occasion,-a mistake all the more deplorable in a statesman like M. Guizot, who held firm and noble language enough in private, as is abundantly evident from the report made by Père de Ravignan of his conferences with the minister. But in the Chambers he was less courageous; and the chapter on which we are now commenting is but a poor defence of the weakness evinced by the ministry in their yielding to the Voltairean outery, skilfully raised by the monopolists of the University to defend their pretensions, hostile alike to liberty and to religion. Yet the chapter is written with an air of calm satisfaction, as if it were the chronicle of the most brilliant achievement of M. Guizot's government. He claims, indeed, to have practically succeeded in forcing the Holy See to make concessions which it certainly did not make, and which it took good care to say that it did not make. Whatever may be thought of the later career of M. Rossi, his mission to Gregory XVI. was not only a real failure, but it was a notorious failure also; and some of his despatches, which are printed at length by M. Guizot, show a quite ludicrous ignorance of men and manners at Rome. He went first as an occasional envoy only, during the absence of the regular ambassador; when it was afterwards proposed to give him the embassy, some objections were put forward on the ground of the Protestantism of his wife, which would probably have been attended to with courtesy if they had come from any other court in Europe; but the appointment was insisted on by the government of Louis Philippe ; and M. Guizot, in this chapter of his Mémoires, parades the correspondence on the subject as if it had been the instrument of a great diplomatic victory. But, after all, he was in this instance only like others of his class. If the history of the dealings of the various European Courts with the Holy See were ever written in detail, it might contain many instances of noble loyalty and generous devotion; but we fear that there would be plenty of materials for a very different picture also.

Perhaps the most generally interesting parts of M. Guizot's volumes are those in which he touches off the characters of the many eminent men with whom his position as minister threw him into contact. We have an occasional glimpse in the volume before us of Sir Robert Peel as timid and distrustful of France, Lord Aberdeen as a sincere and influential friend of peace and the entente cordiale, Lord Palmerston as the evil genius of both. The chapter on the affairs of Algeria gives

the author an occasion to let us see the somewhat unmanageable character of Marshal Bugeaud; and that on the Regency debates is embellished by an elaborate and generous tribute of admiration to M. Berryer. Passages such as this last will redeem the book, in the eyes of the general public, from the charge of heaviness, which might be grounded on the long-winded extracts from M. Guizot's own despatches, of which it is in great part made up. The circumstances of our day too are rather against the popularity of these volumes. The march of events has removed us very far indeed from the questions with which the names of Pritchard, Collettis, and Rossi were connected.

RESEARCHES IN CRETE.

CAPTAIN SPRATT was appointed in 1851 to continue a general survey of Crete, which had already been begun by Captain Graves, and seems to have remained in the island till 1853, when the prospect of what afterwards became the Crimean war led to his recall for the purpose of labouring in quarters the knowledge of which was all-important for the conflict then at hand. The survey of Crete was not completed till some time after the end of the war. The two volumes which Captain Spratt has now published contain a mass of information of various kinds, historical, antiquarian, and scientific,-the collection of which does great credit to the intelligence and activity of the author. The arrangement is, of course, in the main, that of an ordinary book of travels; but each volume has an appendix, to which some of the more scientific subjects are relegated, such as the relation between Cretan and modern Greek; the method pursued by the author in deepsea soundings; the question of the under-currents in the Mediterranean, and the saline density of its waters (as well as those of the Euxine) at different depths; the geology, the birds, and the land-shells of Crete; and the Greek inscriptions lately found there. Captain Spratt has confined himself mainly to the eastern portion of the island, the western having been described by Pashley; with this exception, he has given us a very satisfactory monograph, which would, however, be more valuable if it contained something like a summary of the history of Crete.

The most prosperous days of the island seem to have been when it was under the dominion of Venice. Many remains of considerable grandeur and magnificence attest the care taken by the Seigneury to make their outlying possession not only as secure as possible against the aggressions of the Turks, to whom they had at last to yield it, but happy, well-governed, and provided with the religious, educational, and charitable institutions which its population needed. At present, about a third part of the inhabitants are Mussulman; and though they

* Travels and Researches in Crete. By Captain T. A. B. Spratt, R. N., C.B., F.R.S. 2 vols. 1865.

often live on very friendly terms with the Greeks, so that intermarriages are not uncommon, and there is more of free social intercourse than is common in Turkish countries, there is still an uneasy feeling of insecurity among them, the fruit of the war of insurrection waged forty years ago, and of the more recent rising in 1859. The Mussulmans feel that the power of their government is waning, and that they themselves are aliens in the midst of the Christian population. The Greeks appear to be quietly enough disposed in the lowlands; but the mountaineers, who have less to lose in a general disturbance, are thought to be ready for a fresh attempt for liberty whenever a favourable opportunity occurs; and who can tell when it may suit European diplomacy to provide them with such an occasion?

The defect of Captain Spratt's book, as far as it claims the attention of unscientific readers, is the absence of any one prominent thread of general interest running through the whole. Perhaps there is hardly enough in Crete to secure our attention throughout two volumes. The most popular bit in the work will be the description of the sponge-divers. Few people trouble themselves to think what has been the history of the sponge they use daily, any more than about the controversy whether it is an animal or a vegetable. A small race of hard-working, and often short-lived, men is occupied off the shores of Crete in bringing sponges up from the bottom of the sea, sometimes from the depth of twenty or thirty fathoms. The operation requires training and practice: some men are able to remain under water, at the depth just mentioned, for a couple of minutes, or even more, diving as much as fifteen or twenty times a-day. The diver prepares himself carefully for each plunge, sitting alone in the bow or stern of the vessel, clearing his lungs by expectoration, and inflating them highly afterwards. He takes with him a slab of marble, about twenty-five-pounds weight, attached to a rope, the end of which remains in the boat, and is immediately taken possession of by his companions, as it is the means of hauling him up rapidly when he gives the signal. The slab is held at arm's length in front of his head as he goes down, and is even used as a rudder to guide his descent. When he is at the bottom, gathering his sponges, it is placed under his arm, and so prevents him from rising too soon. His life sometimes depends on the quickness with which he is pulled up. Captain Spratt tells us that the sand found in a newly-bought sponge is simply placed there by the merchants who have purchased it from the diver, in order to increase its weight. Fine sand is procured, and mixed with water and gum; the sponges are then filled with it, and packed up for the European trader, who is charged according to weight.

We have already mentioned that Captain Spratt's book contains the result of a number of scientific details and researches, which will make it an important work in this light alone. It is beautifully illustrated, and got up with the care that marks the publications of Mr. Van Voorst. Mr. Churchill Babington has undertaken the task of commenting upon a number of new Greek inscriptions contained in the

Appendix. There are not very many of great interest; but one of the most interesting has been made the occasion of a blunder, so amusing that we must take the liberty of pointing it out for Mr. Babington's benefit. It is an inscription near Sitia,-the pious address of the Superior of a certain monastery to our Blessed Lady. It begins with the following couplet :

οὔρεος αἰπυτάτοιο, κόρη, λᾶαν δίχα χειρῶν

τμηθέντ' ἀφράστως δεξαμένη σὺ μόνη

in which there is obviously an allusion to the "stone cut out of the mountain without hands" of the vision in the Book of Daniel. This stone is often taken as a type of our Lord by the Fathers, and our Blessed Lady is here said to have received it in her virginal womb. Mr. Churchill Babington, however, is less well read in the Fathers than in the Classics. "It would seem," he says, "from the first couplet, which is rather obscure, that he supposed her to have saved him from being crushed by a falling stone"! (vol. ii. p. 430.)

THE MADURA MISSION."

THE history of the Catholic Missions in the East, in India, China, and Japan, is in some respects a sad story, because it is the history of enterprise of the very highest order carried out by the exercise of the sublimest Christian virtue and devotion; promising and prosperous after the conquest of extraordinary difficulties, and then paralysed at the moment when ultimate success seemed most certain, not by the fault of the missionaries, or by the action of any powerful source of mischief on the spot, but by the miserable intrigues of disguised enemies of the faith at a distance, and by the heartless policy of ministers and courts which still called themselves Christian and Catholic. It will be evident to any one who reads the little volume now put forward by Fr. Strickland and Mr. Marshall, or the larger work in French published some years ago by Père Bertrand, that the mission in Southern India, originated by St. Francis Xavier, but whose chief founders were De Nobili and De Britto, was on the point of attaining permanent and almost universal success, when it was struck to the heart by the suppression of the Jesuits in the Portuguese dominions, and the subsequent fall of the Society. Pombal and men like him thought but little of the souls of the hundreds of thousands of Christians in India and elsewhere; but their conspiracy against the Church was perhaps felt even less in Europe than in the East and in America, where the progress of Christianity was put back at least a century, and at a time when it seemed to have opportunities open to it which in the history of the world may never occur again. The ruin of the missions in the territories of Portugal and Spain was followed at no great distance of time by another great blow to the Church in the French Revolution,

*

Catholic Missions in Southern India to 1865. By the Rev. W. Strickland and T. W. M. Marshall, Esq. London, 1865,

and the years of trouble that followed it. In consequence of these repeated disasters at a distance, the work of evangelising the heathen has had to be almost begun afresh in many parts of the world; and in others the convulsions that have taken place have rendered it almost hopeless. We all honour the swarms of missionaries that in our day have gone out from Europe in increasing numbers to resume and carry on the great work; but it cannot be denied that it has been terribly thrown back. It is not only that time has been lost. The work has now to be carried on under far greater disadvantages in many respects than before; while, if things had been quiet in Europe from the middle of the last century, it might by this time have been so far advanced as to make the further supply of foreign missionaries unnecessary, and might have left the new churches in the full vigour of youth, as perfectly organised as any in the Catholic world.

The most interesting part of the volume now before us will be found to be the account of the more recent labours of the missionaries who have gone out, chiefly from France, to take up once more the desolated mission of Madura. They have been but few in number in comparison with the exigencies of the mission; and a large percentage of them has been early cut off by the almost murderous climate, against the effects of which they had not funds enough to provide in the manner usual with other Europeans in India. They often found the field of their labours occupied by the schismatic Goanese priests, who are described in the volume before us as active in nothing but in enriching themselves and creating difficulties for the new-comers. These last had also to contend with the uninterrupted efforts of Protestant missionaries. Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, the Madura mission is flourishing and successful, though sadly in want of more ample funds and fresh missionaries. The cost of educating priests is confessedly great every where; but as on so many accounts the future prosperity of the Church in India would seem to depend upon its being furnished as soon as possible with a numerous and efficient native clergy, it is very gratifying to learn that the comparatively insignificant sum of four pounds a year will support a boy at the college of the mission at Negapatam. Another most hopeful charity in which small gifts would seem to be certain to produce a great and tangible result is that which has sprung up under the care of Father St. Cyr, and the management of the Nuns of "Marie Réparatrice," for the benefit of Indian widows. The miserable condition of these widows, who from the system of marriage in childhood are often mere girls, and yet must not marry again, is one of the most distressing features of the degradation of the female sex in India. Many of them have been collected into communities under the guidance of the European Sisters; and it must be obvious to all what an amount of good may be expected from such institutions, not only in preserving those who might otherwise fall into the lowest depths of vice, but in raising, by means of example and influence, the position of woman to its right and Christian level.